Todd Frazier is the only one in this picture who realized that Austin Jackson could run to first base.Charles Wenzelberg

If I had better, I wouldn’t steal this one: Q: Why is TV called a medium? A: Because when it’s well done, it’s rare.

For all the money, technology, time, travel, research and people invested, why does TV so often remain the last to know?

As the Yankees won the ALDS when Cleveland’s Austin Jackson’s took strike three, the game technically had not ended. The ball popped from Gary Sanchez’s mitt and hit the dirt. But Sanchez headed to the mound to celebrate as third baseman Todd Frazier rushed in to try to alert Sanchez to tag Jackson out — Frazier was even seen trying to wrest the ball from Sanchez to tag Jackson himself.

But the game has changed, so Jackson just stood there, surrendering without a running fight. And FS1 ignored it all.

Play-by-play man/numbers-parrot Matt Vasgersian tried to wreck Game 5’s telecast by reciting any stat, as many as he could, all game. So many senseless to choose from! Though nine teams have come back from down 0-2 in best-of-fives, plus telling us that 100-plus win teams so often don’t advance, he gushed that Cleveland is trying to avoid squandering “a commanding” 2-0 lead. It’s baseball! There is no “commanding” lead in a best-of-five! The Padres beat the Dodgers three straight in early September!

It’s also frustrating to hear analysts we sense could be better if only they received some practical guidance from the TV execs who hired them or from someone within who recognizes the ear pollution fans must suffer almost everywhere they turn.

John Smoltz often sees and speaks applicable nuts and bolts baseball as well as anyone. He’d be great, only if …

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His best stuff for FOX was distinguishable from his filler — he lards his presence with useless and even silly additives. After a third-inning walk to leadoff batter Jacoby Ellsbury in Game 3 of the ALDS, Smoltz said, “You always try to get that first hitter out,” which is not something we need to be told, yet provokes his audience to ask, “Why would he even bother?” Why not just say, “That’s bad” or nothing at all?

In the third inning of Wednesday’s Game 5, Aaron Judge struck out swinging at a low outside pitch, which, said Smoltz, was a case of either the pitcher or batter trying “to expand the strike zone.”

But isn’t the strike zone the strike zone? No one expanded the strike zone, Judge just did what we saw him do: He fell for and swung at a pitch thrown low and away.

Also in Game 5, Smoltz suggested Cleveland may have extinguished their fire with that late season, 22-game winning streak. Were they supposed to try to lose a few? It didn’t prevent them from taking a 2-0 lead in the ALDS.

This is the kind of new-age, faux-hip commentary that makes viewers cry out for sanctuary among those who can stay awake on weeknights. Game 4 of the Cubs-Nationals NLDS, a 5-0 final, ran 3:57. Game 5, a 9-8 final in Washington, ran 4:37, ending at 12:46 a.m. More to come. Where once the Cubs gave us Harry Caray, we now watch MLB commit hari-kari.

Is ‘free play’ free if it was original play call?

Time, again, to try to debunk the partial myth of a “free play” after a defender has jumped offside.

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Sure, everything’s relative, including the dreadful state of national telecasts....

Last Sunday, FOX’s Ronde Barber, who’s actually pretty good, said Browns sub QB Kevin Hogan “had the presence to know that you have a free play,” throwing downfield after a Jet jumped the snap. But Hogan already was looking downfield before the flag had even landed. And when it was thrown, Hogan had most of his back to it.

And how would a receiver know there was a “free play”? Did he run a “free play” route or the planned play? Can the QB and at least one receiver both be aware to go with an extemporaneous downfield play, thus “take a shot” at a “free play”? Sure. But not nearly as often as we’re told it did.

No topping Mike Francesa for consistently dishonorable shamelessness.

In late July, “Let’s Be Honest” touted the Giants as “the class of the NFC East.” Last week, with the Giants 0-5, he claimed he knew they were in big trouble before the season began. There’s no surprising him! He just waited until they were 0-5 to claim he knew it from the start.

Last year, when the Vikings started 5-0, Francesa said he’d touted them as a Super Bowl-caliber team. Not that anyone recalled him saying that until they became 5-0. Minnesota then lost four straight and out of the playoffs, creating one more lost tape.

Garden honors Wolff right

Thursday morning The Garden hosted a marvelous tribute to Bob Wolff, who passed in July at 96. Many good speeches, fabulous stories and a large photo of Wolff hosting a radio show in his Naval uniform, starboard of Adm. Chester Nimitz. Wolff met his beloved Jane during World War II when she was a Navy nurse. They were married 72 years.

Throughout this MLB postseason, the TV audio from the booth and field has fluctuated from loud to louder, clear to so muffled the announcers are heard as if peaking through flannel pajamas. No one on-site or at the head-end monitors, fixes such things?

Good stuff on MSG’s Devils-Maple Leafs game, which included New Jersey’s 3-on-5 goal in a 6-3 win. Afterward, at rink-side, Deb Placey, with Devils center Blake Coleman, asked if he’d ever seen one before. Coleman, perhaps sensing that he may never see one again, smiled and quickly answered, “No.”

Brett Gardner kept a Game 4 ALDS inning alive and scored Starlin Castro from third when he helped force a bad throw by running hard to first with two out. Where, asks reader Frank Connelly, would Robinson Cano have been? He’d have been on first, too — first step of the dugout.

Best follow-the-dough thing about a local NFL team starting rotten is that “flex” scheduling goes the other way, thus the Giants will be moved to some 1 p.m. starts — a throwback to the logical days when fans actually counted as much as TV money.

After a 2-1 World Cup disqualifying loss by the U.S. to Trinidad and Tobago, FOX has been left holding a soccer bag — it paid roughly $200 million for 2018 World Cup rights — as interest in the States will be minimized. Still seems unfair that the U.S. had to play two countries — Trinidad and Tobago at the same time.